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CAR: WFP receives US $1 million for the displaced

BANGUI, 24 March (IRIN) - The UN
World Food Programme (WFP) has received US $1 million from multilateral
donors to buy food for thousands of internally displaced people and vulnerable
groups in the troubled Central African Republic (CAR), David Bulman, the
WFP representative in the CAR, told IRIN on Saturday.
"It is part of a US $6.6 million
project for an overall tonnage of 8,816 mt," he said.

WFP, he said, already had $500,000 for
the project. He said the funds would now enable WFP to buy 1,200 mt of
food from Cameroon and other countries. He said 1,700 mt of food was stored
in the Cameroonian seaport of Douala.

"We will borrow from other projects
while waiting for the road from Cameroon to be reopened," he said.

Meanwhile, following WFP appeals on the
government-owned Radio Centrafrique and the UN-Fondation Hirondelle-sponsored
Radio Ndeke Luka, Bangui residents have begun to return food looted from
WFP's warehouses after the 15 March coup.

A WFP official supervising the return
of the stolen food said that the Economic and Monetary Community of Central
African States forces and the CAR forces took more than 15 sacks of 25kg
each, out of the 1,800 mt of food looted from the WFP warehouses on 15
and 16 March.

In an advertisement broadcast several
times on the two radios, Bulman warned Bangui residents against "the
very noxious" insecticides that were among the stolen goods.

He told IRIN on Saturday that some people
had started returning the insecticides which, he said, if inhaled or swallowed
can cause death. No insecticide-related deaths have been reported.

"Our priority remains the war-torn
countryside," Bulman said.

Since 25 October 2002, when supporters
of coup leader Francois Bozize first tried to overthrow president Ange-Felix
Patasse until the capture of Bangui by Bozize's men on 15 March, the CAR
had been divided into three parts: the government-controlled south, the
rebel-controlled north, and the east, controlled by the government but
inaccessible as it was behind rebel lines. The north and the east had been
isolated from the capital, Bangui, and had not received food or medical
aid.

WFP reported on 12 March that some 231,000
people had left their homes as a result of the war in the CAR. About 105,000
of them had fled from the former rebel zones in the north to former government-held
areas in the south; 26,000 were refugees in southern Chad, and more than
100,000 were still hiding in the bush in the north.

[ENDS]

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